ELEAGUE Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Invitational 2019 Overview

The ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational happened over this last weekend In Atlanta, Georgia. The teams that were invited to participate were FaZe Clan, Cloud9, BIG, and compLexity. The format of this tournament was a double-elimination playoff bracket. Winner of this event would be taking home $80,000 dollars out of the $150,000 dollar prize pool.

ELEAGUE Boston Major Rematch

The ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019 started off with a rematch of the ELEAGUE Boston Major 2018 with Cloud9 taking on FaZe in a best of three. Cloud9 picked Overpass as the first map followed by FaZe picking Mirage. Nuke was the deciding map. After and intense match on Overpass that went into overtime Cloud9 pulled out the win 19-15 behind the performances of William ‘RUSH’ Wierzba and Timothy ‘autimatic’ Ta.

RUSH finished with 31 frags and a match high 94.8 ADR. His teammate autimatic finished the map with 29 frags and 75.6 ADR. Now it was time for FaZe to bounce back and win their map pick Mirage. However, this would not be the case. The match would go to overtime with Cloud9 winning 19-16 with Fabien ‘kioShiMa’ Fiey finishing with 27 frags and a match high ADR of 90.9. Cloud9 would end up surprisingly sweeping FaZe in the best of three series and advancing to play the winner of BIG vs compLexity.

BIG Debut XANTARES versus compLexity

Xantares

BIG vs compLexity was not a very entertaining series with BIG sweeping the series and winning 16-13 on Overpass followed by a dominate 16-6 win on Cache. BIG’s newest member Ismailcan ‘XANTARES’ Dortkardes showed the world that he is in fact a true star player and that BIG picking him up as their fifth player was the correct decision. He finished the series with a 90.4 ADR and a 1.23 Rating.

Upper Bracket Final (BIG vs. Cloud9)

Courtesy of Dailey Esports

BIG would now go on to face Cloud9 in the upper bracket final. Cache was picked by BIG to be the first map. Cloud9 would go on to pick one of their favorite maps in Overpass with Inferno being the decider. Even with both matches being close, Cloud9 still managed to dominate and sweep BIG 2-0 finishing 16-14 on Cache then 16-14 on Overpass.

A player to remember in this particular series is Robin ‘flusha’ Ronnquist who finished with a 89.6 ADR and a 1.32 rating for the series while also making clutch plays time and time again. It really seemed as though Cloud9 was playing perfect Counter-Strike and they honestly looked unstoppable.

Lower Bracket Final (BIG vs. FaZe)

BIG went on to play FaZe in the lower bracket finals. Winner of this matchup would go on to play Cloud9 in the grand finals. BIG vs FaZe was set and the maps for the best of three series were Cache, Train and Inferno. This would be a series that would go the length of all three maps. Cache would go the way of FaZe and they would win 16-14. The next map was Train and BIG did enough to win 16-14 and force FaZe to play a third map. FaZe came out swinging on Inferno and with a perfect well-rounded team performance would win 16-10 with Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer leading the way with a 88.4 ADR.

Cloud9 and FaZe Meet Again (Grand Final)

The FaZe win setup the rematch between Cloud9 and FaZe. Could history be repeating itself? FaZe vs Cloud9 at another ELEAGUE Final could Cloud9 do it again? FaZe picked Mirage and Cloud9 picked Inferno as the first two maps. Train was the final map and the decider. On the first map Cloud9 would not be stopped as they finished CT side up 14-1. Cloud9 closed out the map winning Mirage 16-3 absolutely embarrassing FaZe. Autimatic and RUSH led the way with 93.9 and 112.7 ADR, respectively.

FaZe win the ELEAUGE CS:GO 2019 Invitational and pose with the trophy

Things were not looking good for FaZe, but Cloud9 would have to beat them on Inferno. This map has a history of close games behind it so it would not be easy. Cloud9 would start super slow and go down 11-4 at the half. Cloud9 would then go on to win six rounds in a row to make it close. But, FaZe would be victorious with olofmeister dropping 27 frags and a 104 ADR they would win 16-12. We have been here before, map three of a best of three finals between FaZe and Cloud9. The last time this happened Cloud9 shocked the world and became the first North American team to win a CS:GO Major.

Would FaZe be able to overcome Cloud9 this time? The answer was yes. FaZe looked like the old “god squad” FaZe. FaZe won the first half 11-4. This is extremely shocking because Train is a Counter Terrorist side map. However, FaZe ended up winning 11 rounds while playing as the Terrorists. Cloud9 would try to make the comeback but FaZe proved to be too much for them. Ladislav ‘GaurdiaN’ Kovacs would dominate Cloud9 with a classic AWP performance finishing with 34 frags and nine deaths with 131.2 ADR and a 2.11 rating. FaZe would win 16-9 and become the ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational Champions behind the individual performance of GaurdiaN. GaurdiaN won event MVP and FaZe got revenge on Cloud9.

What Did We Learn?

This event showed us two things. The first is that the new Cloud9 roster is not as bad as everyone thought it would be. These guys can win maps and win games versus some of the best teams in the world. Cloud9 will grow from this loss and I look forward to seeing how they perform at the IEM Katowice Major. The second thing this event showed to the Counter-Strike world is that FaZe is not going away. They are still a top five team in the world.

They are resilient and can bounce back from adversity. Even with Cloud9 destroying FaZe in the first map, they did not let it bother them one bit. FaZe ended up winning it all and taking home the $80,000 dollars. In conclusion, the CS:GO world needs to watch out for both teams at the Katowice Major.

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